Drosophila melanogaster, commonly known as the "fruit fly", is a genetically tractable model organism widely used to study biological processes, notably the innate immune system. The advent of novel genome editing technologies, such as the CRISPR-Cas9 syst ...
Biofilm formation is generally recognized as a bacterial defense mechanism against environmental threats, including antibiotics, bacteriophages, and leukocytes of the human immune system. Here, we show that for the human pathogen Vibrio cholerae, biofilm f ...
The pathogenic bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) can invade the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and cause meningitis with devastating consequences. Whether and how sensory cells in the central nervous system (CNS) become activated during bacteri ...
Rosacea is a common chronic inflammatory skin disease with a fluctuating course of excessive inflammation and apparent neovascularization. Microbial dysbiosis with a high density of Bacillus oleronius and increased activity of kallikrein 5, which cleaves c ...
Hosts and pathogens are involved in a long-standing evolutionary arms race characterized by successive rounds of evolution. Specifically, while hosts evolve resistance against infections, pathogens adapt to re-establish virulence. Since the signatures of t ...
Bacteria often colonize their environment in the form of surface attached multicellular communities called biofilms. Biofilms grow from surface-attached cells that undergo division while self-embedding in a viscoelastic matrix. Biofilms grow at the surface ...
A variety of physical inputs acts onto bacteria in nature. However, these are most often ignored in the studies of their physiology. There is now increasing evidence indicating that bacteria respond to physical stimuli, including mechanical forces. Yet, qu ...
The abusive use of antimicrobial drugs during the last eighty years has favoured the natural selection of resistant pathogens able to neutralise drugs efficiently. Nowadays, antimicrobial resistance contributes to millions of deaths yearly, threatens the e ...
The biofilm lifestyle is the most widespread survival strategy in the bacterial world. Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilms cause chronic infections and are highly recalcitrant to antimicrobials. The genetic requirements allowing P. aeruginosa to grow into biof ...
Genomic instability enhances cancer progression by favoring clonal diversity, yet uncontrolled replicative stress can lead to mitotic catastrophe and inflammatory responses promoting immune rejection. KRAB-containing zinc finger proteins (KZFPs) are epigen ...
Cancer immunotherapy has become an attractive strategy among different therapeutic modalities over the past few years and has showed great success in the clinic. However, there are many outstanding challenges hindering the current immunotherapies. In my Ph ...
Cell-cell communication is fundamental for immune balance. Multivalent interactions of surface receptors at immune interfaces drive specific communication, with stimulatory and inhibitory signals guiding the immune outcome. Notably, the valency, affinity, ...
